Saturday, January 17, 2009

Jim and dad suprised me at Christmas with a new sewing machine...they tend to do this often! Nothing was wrong with my old one, in fact I loved my Baby Lock Quilter's Choice. It was an awesome machine. Nikki has it now and I am sure she will really enjoy it. This one is amazing it is a Baby Lock Espire for the Quilter's Choice Series. My favorite things that it is equipped with is a automatic fabric sensor, to self adjust to different fabric layers, depths and textures. You can also lock the presser to automatically come up but leave the needle down when you stop sewing for easy turning, it will also cut and back stitch automatically. There are hundreds of stitches, I will probably never use but are cool. I am really excited about using it. It will get a lot of use this fall! ;)

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

I found this amazing fabric at Home Fabrics in IF. I have been needing to give our bedroom a make-over really bad. I hate the color on my walls and the comforter with matching pieces, it was really bad. This fabric helped give me the new ideas I had been needing. I made a duvet cover and bed skirt. I love down comforters! Duvets are my only option since I can never find what I am looking for in bedding. I just have to redo our drapes to match...and I have this awesome chair that I picked up that I just need to recover that I would like to add...a project for the summer. A few other projects for the summer...paint this room, refinish the bed frame, I don't love the stain. I am leaning towards painting it black...any thoughts????

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Since the roads were horrible in Portland from the amazing amount of snow, Jim drove us to go shopping on Christmas Eve...which resulted in getting run off the road in our Land Rover by a mexican that couldn't speak a word of english, which I think was total BS as a way to get out of being responsible or giving any information, typical. We ended up hitting a huge 12 in curb, barely missed a stop sign, and a Knechts sign to avoid an accident. Our front tire blew out and there seemed to be some other problems that began to be evident as we drove it...great another stress! Luckily this stress turned it Merry Christmas to Alicia!

Christmas day after spending it with Jim's family, we loaded up to head back to my parents home. It was around 8:30pm and the boys were exhausted. Before we got to the end of the street the boys were asleep. So we went on a drive, I suggested cruising Mcloughlin blvd, I main drag in Milwaukie that is abundant with car lots. We had discussed a Yukon as the next vehicle we would like to own, as much as I love Land Rovers, our Disco was just too small. The thought of having another baby meant a bigger vehicle. Jim didn't know it but I directed him to the GMC lot to "just look". As we checked out the Yukons we couldn't believe there was no room behind the 3rd row seats for a stroller, cooler, groceries, gear, luggage, etc. It is the smallest area for a family rig...crap that isn't going to work...next. The denalis were the same thing. Next, came love at first sight!

The Yukon XL was sitting there, Ebony black, black leather interior, built-in dvd, fully loaded with everything you could ever want, or think of, or need, or not need, or know what to do with. It was unlocked, so I climbed inside to check it out. The XL just means there is an additional 18 inches of cargo space, ah...more room! My love affair with this rig started that night! We headed to the dealership the next day-and arrived home just in time for David's surprise party in our new 2008 Yukon XL, we bought the same one that I climbed into the night before. They had white or silver, but come on the black is HOT! I completely look like a typical mormon mom now, huge rig and all...all I gotta say is at least I am not driving a mini-van. I told jim the day would never come that you would catch me driving a van. Yeah, we are lacking a few babes to put all that room to use...but we plan on filling it up...or at least 1 more seat. Thankyou Jim...you are the bestest husband ever!!! He really is amazing, my best friend, I can't believe in 4 months we will have been together for 10 years! There is nothing better than sharing life with someone that loves you, respects you, is your equal, and treats you like you are his everything. We laugh together, play hard together, have fun together, and life is so much sweeter because he is part of it. I love you, Jim!

Ok, so apparently I start many blogs and save them and then never come around to finishing them. I just seem to not be able to find the time anymore to sit down for that long and write. So I am recommiting myself to blogging. The problem is if I have the time I would rather be reading everyone elses blogs than writing my own. No worries, we are still alive, made it through the holidays...and are just getting back into the daily grind. Christmas, ah Christmas, usually my favorite time of year, but this year it just wasn't the same. I truly had too much stress to enjoy our trip to Portland. The whole time I was there I just couldn't figure out how to relieve my stress to enjoy the holiday, then I was stressed and frustrated that I was still stressed. Anyway, I concluded that I took on way to many stocking orders, and even after I closed my shop I had women emailing me asking if I could just do one more order; of course being naive and new to the whole thing I took on more orders. So because of the weather we had to leave Rexburg 4 days earlier than planned which cut into my stocking making days, so then I had to haul everything to portland to finish them there. Only to arrive in Portland during a huge snow storm, which delayed all my shipping. Anyway, lesson learned. December 5th is my new deadline no matter what! Aside from the stockings, I realized that 2 1/2 weeks was way too long to visit. My kids were crazy, I had no down time, or "Me" time, and I felt every good routine that we had spent months and even years teaching the kids went out the window with 2 weeks of new bad habits formed. So another lesson learned, no long trips to Portland, 1 week max.Please don't get me wrong, I LOVE my family and my siblings, we have a blast together, and we did...but it is better if they come here now that our family is growing. With all the snow that Portland got while we were there(like 20 inches) we tubed down our driveway, made a huge jump at the end of the driveway to snowboard down, ripped cookies all over the valley, had snowball fights, made snowmen, wrestled, made lots of homemade goodies, and played hard. There was a lot of gaming, junk food eating, and laughs!

About Me

Jim and I have been married 10 years and have 3 boys, Preston(8 yrs), Connor(6 yrs) and Brody (4 yr). These are our stories and adventures! Jim is practicing Chiropractic and Sports medicine in Cottage Grove.